Images of a certain modernity: Klabin House in Campos de Jordao, instance of architectural experimentation

Abstract

This paper seeks to make a first reading of a cottage built by Emmanuel Klabin in Campos do Jordão, Brazil, in early 1950s. The author and his work are presented, trying to contextualize the possible affiliations and references involving both. It seeks to understand which ideas and concepts have possibly influenced the design and construction, which, at the same time that is figuratively associated with a submarine, it suggests certain attachment to procedures and rationalist principles. If, in one hand, the formal plastic character of the house draws attention, the author also stands out. Mina Kablin’s brother and Gregori Warchavchik’s brother in-law, he was in direct contact with a context of cultural effervescence connected to the Modern Architecture in Brazil in the mid-1920s and 1930s, as well as being an entrepreneur in the real estate. As a part of an ongoing research, the paper relies on information based on records, surveys and on-site interviews. It aims to give visibility to a possible attitude of "breaking with conventional procedures and aesthetic models" that the house has, aligning, accordingly, with the theme Radical Moderns V!12.